Lens maker for cataracts on market for £400m

A COMPANY that makes replacement lenses for cataract patients has been put up for sale by its private equity owners with a price tag of up to £400million.

City sources said Rayner Surgical Group, the only British manufacturer of intraocular lenses, could be about to change hands for between £300million and £400million after buyout specialist Phoenix Equity Partners appointed bankers from NM Rothschild to carry out a ‘strategic review’ of the business.

The move comes amid a flurry of dealmaking in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

In one case last week, US giant Thermo Fisher bought Qiagen, a Dutch diagnostics company, for $11.5 billion (£9 billion).

Rayner was founded in 1910 when John Baptiste Reiner and Charles Davis Keeler opened their first optician’s in London.

The company became pioneers in making lenses and devices used for cataract surgery when it teamed up with Sir Harold Ridley, a consultant ophthalmologist who led the first implant of an intraocular lens in 1949.

Phoenix Equity Partners bought a stake in Rayner in 2017 with a view to helping the company expand in the US and creating a new production facility in Worthing, West Sussex, where Rayner has its headquarters and current factory.

Sources familiar with the situation said the private equity firm had decided to look at a sale after receiving several approaches for the business.

Phoenix declined to comment.